Monday, November 30, 2009

Monday

Is it time to go back to work already? I'm not ready yet. I want to go shopping some more! I also like living in an environment where if I want something to eat all I have to do is open the refrigerator and take a brief multiple choice quiz - Actually, its more like an essay question! There is all kinds of food in there! It's amazing, its like a grocery store in my house. Imagine, using a refrigerator for something other than a place to put magnets!

I broke from tradition this year by putting my tree up the day after Thanksgiving. It is "up" but not up, it isn't decorated and the only reason it has lights on it is because it came that way. It is not plugged in! I do have my pride. And by next weekend, I will have my outside lights up and my air blown tied down. I hope the hipsters next door have a sense of humor.

With the Christmas cookies set for launch next week, I set to work on my latest batch, Operation Church Cookie Sale. I had decided I wasn't going to do it and it was BS and they wouldn't really want dog treats any way and the next thing I knew, I had several dozen chicken broth flavored chicks cavorting on my table and then the beef bouillon cows appeared and now I'm planning my bacon pigs, and that doesn't count the parsley/mint bunnies I have all ready finished.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Garden Update 15

Well. There isn't much of the garden left, but there is still a garden and it is a happy garden.

On Saturday while I was running around like a crazy person doing all the work in the world, I took a break and went to check out how the garden was doing. I haven't spent a lot of time with the garden lately, I pulled a couple of tomatoes off a few weeks ago and a pepper, but there hasn't been a lot going on there. I also had to take out a couple of baby brocs but that was a while ago. The remaining brocs don't look too chewed yet.

But on Saturday I pulled a lot. I took out all the tomatoes and a couple of the peppers. It was time and the plants were dead or clearly on the way there. I felt bad but not as bad as I thought I would. I think they and I were ready to let go.

Sad isn't it?

The peppers are allowed to stay because they are still making peppers

They are little peppers, granted but they are peppers and I'm not going to pull them out if they are still productive. Unlike the tomato plants the peppers are still green and pretty and healthy.

Speaking of green

Aren't they cute? So little and bug chewed, I'm still keeping the hope alive. I'm not unplugging frankenhose and removing the rubber mulch blanket that's presumably keeping them warm at night. My flowers in front are still blooming, but I think its because they have a nice blanket of dead leaves to cuddle up with at night.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Work, work, work

Saturday I worked, I raked the yard again, went to the Raleigh Christmas Parade 2009 - Austin thinks its weird, Raleigh is weird. Then I raked the yard again and then I went to the library book sale where I exhibited a total lack of self control, and then I did some laundry and then I went Christmas shopping, successfully. I worked like a puppy all day. And that doesn't even bring into account the 1413 dog treats I counted Friday night.

Sunday I finished up the laundry, got depressed because the yard was covered in leaves again, and made more dog cookies. Yes, more dog treats. These cookies are for the Church cookie sale so don't look at me like that, like I have a dog treat making "problem". These cookies are completly different from the other cookies, these cookies are shaped like barn yard animals! There will be beef bullion cows, chicken broth Chicks, bacon Pigs and parsley/mint flavored Bunnies. Thus far its just the bunnies but I have great plans. To make room for these plans I bagged up all the Christmas cookies as well as the Thanksgiving cookies. Work, work, work!

Friday, November 20, 2009

I Love Community*. If you liked the first few seasons of My Name is Earl, you will love Community. Its like MNiE but without the list and the creeping pathos. Also? Joel McHale is really hot. And everyone else in the cast is really, really good and they are a true ensemble, even that asshat Chevy Chase! Chevy Frickin Chase is acting as part of an ensemble,
for this alone you should watch the show. I mean, who knew Chevy Frickin Chase could share a stage?

You should just start watching and then make your friends watch it. You could blog about it! And I would be blogging about it and it would be blogging synergy! And more people would start watching it and they would be happy and the world would have happier people in it and that would be a good thing. Watch the show, save the world.

Okay.

Oh, before we talk about Dogger, we have to talk about these new aps they have for the I-Phone*. My phone is wonderful and I love it, but as rawking and dead sexy as I find my phone, my phone doesn't have the very interesting Epicurious recipe ap or something called the Smart Chief ap that lets you find substitutions for recipe items you forgot to go buy. I want this! My phone lets me keep up with football scores and Facebook but I want even cooler aps!

Okay. Now onto the dog.

Dogger had her follow up appointment, this would be her 274th post surgical follow up appointment since last April. Her infection is gone and the vet, drum roll please... Wants her to go for more walks! That is his solution. I see it maybe a little differently: I think she needs fewer walks. It happens the same way every time, she's infected or lame and we stop walking, she goes back onto crate rest and antibiotics and she gets better, in fact she is doing really well, she's bouncy and happy and full of energy and the vet says "Take her for more walks!" and I take her for more walks and everything is fine and the vet says "Take her for longer walks!" and I take her for longer walks and lo and behold she gets another infection or she pulls up lame AGAIN.

It's a vicious circle. The better she's doing the better the chance something is going to go wrong. Someday she's going to be doing phenomenally well. She'll have gotten her muscle mass back, she'll be running on her walks and jumping into cars and being a real dog for the first time in years. I'm going to be very excited about all of this and I am going to let her off her leash in the back yard for two seconds and she'll go instantly septic and die.

Dogger has another appointment in two weeks and I'm going to tell the vet that if this happens again, she's going back on his table and he's going to open her up and remove the cat gut. No crate rest, no ABT, no anti-inflammatories. Surgery. Done, I'm done with this. We're done with this.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Santa Me

Yay! I got two more Christmas presents! and these two came with free! gift! wrapping! So score one or two for me! and my best girlfriends at home who will get gifts that do not look like they were wrapped by a poorly coordinated toddler! Whoo-Hoo! I'm very excited by this.

I am making progress on Christmas! Yay! I think this is very exciting news. So far I have some of my list taken care of, but not all my list. Some people are doing really well and are going to have a great Christmas and love me some are going to watch other people have a great Christmas and hate me. I need to even it out a little. A lot. I need to even it out a lot.

I thought I was going to get this one thing for some one but now I don't think I'll be able to get what I want for what I want. There are a lot of choices and after reading too many reviews of too many variations of the same thing, I don't think any of them are going to be "right". I may have stop shopping for it online. I'm going to have to go old school and hit old fashioned brick-and-mortar retailers - Which is a turn off, I hate the public and I loath paying retail, but actually having fewer choices to over think might be a better in the long run.

Merry Christmas! I hope you love it! I had to go to the mall to get it. I had to drive my car and find parking and then go inside with all those people and sales tax. The receipt? I burned it. Merry Christmas.

If you are a dog in my life you are going to have a very, very good holiday season. You might even have a good New Years Eve if I can figure out what cookie shapes would be appropriate. I am all about matching the cookie to the holiday. It's important and it totally matters to the dogs. Totally...

I believe that Dogger likes her turkey gravy cookies even more because they are shaped like turkeys, it lets her know that I respect her intellect and that all your dog really wants - And steak your dog also wants steak! And if you give your dog steak (and some appropriately seasonal shaped dog cookies) your dog won't bicker about their IQ verses your IQ or which one of you is better trained or if you really love them for their brain or if its just about their capacity to play fetch with you for hours when they would really rather be at home reading The New York Times . Do you really want to know how fast Fluffy breezes through the Sunday puzzle?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Dogger

Why isn't there anything on TV?! I'm beginning to think its a plot by NBC, Netflix and the cable industry. I think this also explains the Jay Leno fiasco. I believe that NBC secretly owns Netflix and is using it as a shield during this bad economy. They are going to write off the whole Leon thing as a loss. Its a tax thing. I also think NBC owns the entire basic cable industry as well . They are forcing us to watch basic cable and rent from Netflix because they have arranged for there to be nothing to watch on TV. NBC whiffed with Leno and that gave the other networks a chance to roll out bad programing because there was no competition. Do you actually believe that anyone would be watching NCIS if there was anything else on TV? Have you ever watched White Collar? or any of the other scripted dramas on basic cable No, you don't any of them because they all look stupid? They are, but they are still better than Leno.

For instance, thanks to the dearth of broadcast television I want to see, I am watching a lot of HGTV. A Lot. I've started to watch Designers Challenge. I never thought I had any opinion design but I since I have started to watch too much Challenge, I have developed a deep hate for bourgeois design and the creative, yet expensive use of beige. I must stop T-Fauxing it makes tacky drek like Color Splash seem like high art. I blame Leno.

So, how is Dogger? on Sunday she started to very tentatively put a leetle weight on the bad foot and was getting a bit of her bounce back, but Monday she was back to limping but I let her be in her room for a few hours and on Tuesday, she was a lot less tentative on her foot and she was stretching again! I like when she stretches, it gives me the impression her leg is not going to fall off. A girl can dream.

We go back to the vet on Thursday and he'll be happy with her progress. She's really responding well to the antibiotic, she's walking and there hasn't been any more weeping from the wound - All good things, the problem being that this is the third time we've gone through this. Infection/bad gait/ABT therapy/a course of anti-inflammatories/walk,walk,walk/ABT therapy/a course of anti-inflammatories/walk,walk,walk/infection/bad gait/ABT therapy... It gets old. The vet said he might go back in to make all this stop and I think I'm going to tell him he is going to go back in - After the holidays, I'm tired of all this. I want my dog back and not just occasionally.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Fall Fun

I raked my yard this weekend. I had been putting it off but there are only three houses with trees in their yards and the other two places had been raked all ready. Note, "my yard" not " my leaves", because the leaves on my yard belong to the hipsters tree next door. My tree is still green and has 99 percent of it leaves while their tree is almost completely denuded and what leaves it has left are yellow. I hate that tree. I hate its fruit in the spring too. I was always hopeing the drug dealer would neglect it to death but apparently its some sort of vampire tree that won't die until a stake is driven through its heart or it gets root rot or its suckers slowly strangle it to death. I can only hope.

My yard was covered with brown and yellow leaves, from their tree. Their yard looks fab, a light sprinkling of seasonal color but only just a dusting. I hate them. My yard, three hours after I finished the job was a freaking mess again - Thinking positively, its "salted" with yellow leaves but I'm not going to obsess over them because their tree is not completely bare yet and I don't want to get OCD over the other guys leaves. I could but I choose not to.

I also choose not to rake since then because I don't want to exacerbate my popped blisters on my hand. I can hear you out there saying If you wore gloves you wouldn't have blisters! , I was wearing blisters! Big, manly work gloves. Too big, too manly work gloves that rubbed the back of my thumb raw. Owie. I need to ask Santa for little lady-like work gloves that won't protect me into blisters.

I came home from work today and my yard was covered in leaves again.

To take my mind off of it, I, drum roll please : Made More Cookies! Because hey, the world needs more dog treats doesn't it? I wasn't going to make more cookies but while Doggers been crate bound I've been indulging her a little. A little. Just maybe, a few more than she would usually get, a leetle more frequently...

I was running out and she needed more. I also had some left overs from the last cookiepalooza and I didn't want to waste the ingredients. I also have too much wheat flour and I hate wheat flour. Its gritty and it makes the cookies' texture weird and messes with my vision. Over all it simply does not work with my cookie aesthetic.

The wheat flour has to go.

So. Dogger gets more turkey gravy cookies and my friends at work also get turkey gravy cookies and pumpkin/molasses cookies. Yay. I went to Michael's and looked for appropriate Thanksgiving themed gift bags but they didn't carry any- because, if you can't over think a simple thing, why bother having the thought in the first place. I had to go with the Moose with Lights in their Racks design. They look suitably dog-like and the bags aren't all that Christmas-sy. Other than the Christmas lights.

I think my neighbors are going to get a lot of pumpkin/molasses cookies. Its Thanksgiving-y, don't you think? Its like pumpkin pie for your dog, we like that don't we? Happy people, happy dog? Is it weird to give your neighbors Thanksgiving themed dog treats? I mean, am I going to be that crazy lady?

Friday, November 13, 2009

Thursday, November 12, 2009

I'm back

I am over Ida. In honor of Ida, the wasps are wearing tiny rain coats in clever prints.

I was supposed to spend my day off raking leaves and being useful but instead I had to go shopping . Had. To. Had to. It was all the rain and wind, I had to go shopping. Or, I could have stayed in the house and watched TV. All Day. All Day.

I was really surprised that I was the only one. I went to Kohl's and got greeted at the door and the staff was just standing around trying to look busy. At this time of year. Trying to look busy. I was shocked, I also found some nice bargains so Santa was happy. I then went to TJ Maxx and found a few things that Santa needed and I didn't wait in line there either. I went to Poverty Barn on the way home and there I stood in a line. Maybe if I had gone in the guise of Santa I would not have had to stand in a line but I don't think anyone has asked Santa for toilet bowl cleaner.

Dogger has to go back to the vet. Sadness. Tuesday night, I was bringing her in from her last pee and I stepped on her foot. She didn't yip or anything so I just apologized and moved on. Well, by this morning she was full on limping. I decided that maybe I broke a toe when I mashed her foot. Years ago, when she was a puppy one of the nephdogs (RIP) stepped on one of her feet and broke a toe so I thought maybe this is what I did. There is nothing you can do for a doggy broken toe. Nada .

When I took her out to pee in the mornming, she was stiff and her gait was awful - awful in a familure way. An infected way. I made Dogger take a bath because she really needed one and I thought the hot water might make her feel better. Her knees don't like cold and damp and we are experiencing cold and damp, hence this new, aggressive form of limping she had adopted. I thought she would feel better post bath. I really did not want a new infection. Her surgery was last March. Infection time is over.

Bath completed, I used the blow dryer to dry her off, and deposited her in her room so she could eat her reward cookies and I could read the paper. I came back and noticed her surgical knee looked funny, kind of wet and I could see the leetle hole that was left from the infection and then the plastic issue. A quick wipe with a Kleenex told the truth, it was weeping pinkly. We're not dealing with a broken toe.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The Cute and the Damned

I did get myself some real parsley. I could tell it was parsley because they sold it in bouquets and it was cheap, and you can tell you are buying fancy herbs because they cost more and are only available as boutonnieres. The More You Know...

I was going to maybe make the cookies tonight but then I remembered my parents arriving on Wednsday and then spending the night as they pass through on a road trip and I might want to clean my house or something and so I did "something" but it wasn't really cleaning but I did move a pile of stuff from one place to another. I decided that Tuesday night was going to be Clean The House go-time. I'm a pressure player.

But before all that, I was driving home through downtown watching it get grayer as I got closer to the house and I told myself that I was going to need to be very prompt once I got home about walking Dogger because it looked like rain and neither of us like to walk in the rain and if it started raining before our walk we would not walk at all and so I really needed to get a move on.

And then I passed this thrift store and saw this really cute occasional table and I thought Hmm. That might look really cute next to the couch, in the spot the crate is in... I could flatten the crate and put it away for the first time since last March and put that cute little table in its place.Hmmmm So I drove around the corner and found a spot and went back to get a closer look at the table - Which as it turned out was much cuter at 25 miles an hour. But I had to inspect it, which I did even after deciding it wasn't coming home with me.

I spent more time with it than I would have because it annoyed the clerk smoking outside. I'm sure her second hand smoke did not improve my opinion of the table. It was kind of cute, but not that cute and it was taller than I had thought and it had a stain in the middle and the table did not look like it could be refinished. It was only $25 bucks but it was worth about $25 and if I'm going to spend money on a crap piece of furniture I like it to be a piece of furniture that in its youth was at least well made. This one came from the factory a piece of crap.

So I went home late and stopped at the mail boxes to drop some bills and then had to walk Dogger on the double and not to the post office, which is a nice walk but not in the dark

Monday, November 9, 2009

Garden Cookies

Hi, I'm Diana and I am making more dog cookies! I was out and they kept dragging me back in! The bastards.

I had four additional dogs added to my list over the weekend and I started to worry that I wasn't going to have enough to go around. These things are gifts, I don't want to look like I'm giving them testers. I want every body on my list to get you know, "enough". I now have sixteen dogs on my list and I was a little afraid that varieties I had were not going to be "enough".

So. Now I just finished making banana/honey flavored. I was going to also make mint/parsley breath freshening cookies and I went to the store to get bananas, mint and parsley. I was very successful with the bananas and mint and then I had to look around for my parsley and finally found a bunchie of what I thought was parsley - because it was in a slot called "curly parsley". I did not notice the tag on the parsley that read "cilantro".

Cilantro isn't just a fancy way of saying " curly parsley" is it? I don't know from either of them and I'm not sure of the breath freshening talents of cilantro, because if if cilantro was okay, I think it would have specified "cilantro" and not parsley. But I'm not sure. I can say that cilantro looks a lot like what I imagined parsley would look like.

They both look like things I riped with great prejudice from the ground around my real plants. Speaking of my real plants, the garden, is still there. I had to yank two baby brocs due to pest damage and I tried to remove a tomato because it was dead, but it was still tied up with garden tape and I didn't have anything handy to cut it free. The other plants are still there and still making every attempt to be productive, with the peppers just covered with blooms - but I'm not feeling hopeful about further harvests, but to give them the benefit of the doubt, I'm not going to completely remove the non-dead plants and the plastic mulch until after the first freeze. Then I'm going to start dumping leaves on the plot and start thinking about next spring.

Friday, November 6, 2009

I discovered that Dogger has a Walk Window. I was fifteen minutes late coming home from work and girl dog was done with going for a walk. She looked at her agenda and it was time for Dinner and she was going to eat dinner and she was not going for a walk, it was dinner time and she wasn't comfortable straying too far from her dish. She's okay to leave for her walk from 4:40-4:45 but past that she's really not comfortable with going for a long walk or even a short walk or leaving the house at all or being in a room that does not have her food dish in it. I think she is afraid she won't get fed or her food will taste different if she isn't eating at the exact "right" time. My dog is Rain Man.

She also seems to have a temperature limit for walks. The warmer it is in the morning the longer a walk she wants to go on, if its cold we go around the block and she's done.I try to go straight and she's all We live that way. Where are you going? Is it the cold and dark? Can you not see? Is the cold affecting your decision making skills? I have fur! I can lead you home!. I am 1/83s scent hound and I don't need light. Follow me! It is going to suck for her when its really winter and she needs to walk a long way in the morning because its dark by a quarter to five. Its so great that its light at 6:15am! Its so totally great and useful! No one needs that hour of daylight in the evening! Such a waste! Grrrrr.

Are ya'll watching Community yet? You really should be, its great. Funny as all hell. Much, much more funny than actual Junior College.

We had our much beloved to our boss, weekly meeting today. The theme? "What Does Chronological Order Mean To You?" you would be surprised at the number of definitions we as a group were able to come up with. None of them right, but "we" tried hard. I used the word "linear" and I was like "Start from the beginning and go to the end in order". They didn't understand. So. Sad. I guess they are much more in medias res fans. Or they would be if they knew what that meant. And they don't. But I don't know a thing about open heart surgery or talking down suicides so we're even, for my part I had someone ask about a suicide hot line and I put them on hold. For a second! and then I thought get back on the line and asked if they were having a crisis right now and the caller said she was fine but she was concerned about her neighbors husband who was threatening to kill himself and I told her to call 911. The end.

To prove that I am not completely insensitive, I did skip the snarky part of my speech that I give people who call us for stupid non-our job related things where I tell them they have reached the line that takes complaints against health-care providers and we can't help with whatever she's calling for and I'm not going to forward her because we aren't some sort of free long distance service. Blergh.

The Social Workers said it was the right answer, actually the SW said What the hell was she calling us for a suicide?! Gawd! "He's going to kill himself! Call 9-1-1! Shit!. The first thing I read this morning was a death report for a lady who through herself out a third floor window. Love. My. Job.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Winter Wonderland

I came home to a wonderful surprise, No, the wasps didn't catch bee AIDS. My magazines arrived! Not all of them but some interesting ones.

It turns out Whatever Works is a catalogue of machiney thing mostly. It is a whole catalogue filled all those things you see at the store but can't decide if you really need it so you go on to another store so you can "think about it" and then tell yourself you could get it on the way out but you don't.

All kinds of "useful" things like plastic Bonsai's and a bird houses that stop dogs from barking and a "designer" remote caddy and a Goatee Saver so that you can shave without disturbing your goatie and lots of insect traps and several items that looked suspiciously like vibrators but were called "contour massagers".

There was even a gizmo that would turn any pair of glasses into bifocals, called "little pieces of tape" and they were very proud of their Designer Duct tape "the duct tape makes a fashion statement!". Looking at the picture my guess the statement would not be "Fabulous!", the tape comes in black paisley, "wood", houndstooth and wicker. Fin for the whole family. Buy a selection and Dad can repair the kitchen cupboards and the porch furniture, Mom can spruce up her blazer and the kids can tape Mom and Dad up and escape to places where everything in the house has not been repaired with duct tape. They also sell the lock pick set that the kids will use to make a living once they get there.

After I had thoroughly searched Whatever Works. I moved on to The Vermont Country Store. I was a bit put out what they are now using photography instead of pen and ink drawings but I guess time does move on, even in Vermont. First gay marriage and now fancy photography! I wish however that they would have consulted with the gays a bit when it came to the Christmas decorations they wanted to sell me . The big ticket items were a genuwine "tinsel tree" and a color wheel! Together they look like they would burn your house down as soon as you got them out of their boxes. They seem to just scream Hi! I'm a fire hazard! Plug me in!. I'm guessing you need the color wheel because if you tried to put lights on the tree it would melt. I like kitsch and all but there is a line and I call it The Burn Your House Down Line. Vermont Country Store Fail!

I do in all honesty, think I really need the $19.95 replica of Charlie Browns Christmas tree, especially since I've seen it in other catalogues a whole lot more expensive than that, so I'm folding that page over. Vermont Country Store Win!

And then I came to the toys. Well. Vermont Country Store FAIL!

If the Nurse Cherry books didn't cost $39.95 per box set I know some nurses who would be getting those under the tree. Who can forget Cherry Aimes, Student Nurse, Senior Nurse, Chief Nurse, boy she moved up fast! Army Nurse. Flight Nurse, Veterans Nurse, wait wasn't Cherry a Vet? Visiting Nurse, Private Duty Nurse Cherry sure changes jobs a lot, did anyone check with the Board of Nursing about her? Clearly someone else was suspicious too because Cherry went on the road with Cruise Nurse, Boarding School Nurse, Department Store Nurse and ultimately, Camp Nurse. My how the mighty have fallen! Department Store Nurse? Cherry do you even bother keeping up your licence?

The catalogue even had genuwine recreations of toys from the "1930s to the 1960s", toys so real you can almost taste the led paint. Toys I know I played with at my Grandmothers house. The Chatter Phone! Snoop and Sniff pull toy! The Chatter Phone! Guaranteed to choke out today's less worldly toddlers in a heart beat. And even better Music Box Teaching Clock and Music Box TV! I had these toys! Gawd I'm 5000 years old! My toys are featured in the Vermont Country Store Catalogue!

Did you know you can buy men's footie pajamas? Oddly, they choose to use their traditional illustrations for that item, actually, all the sleepwear were drawings instead of photos. Odd. And because this is the Vermont Country Store, there was also several pages of clothing that even the Amish would reject as too old fashioned and dowdy. I did get a little excited about their large selection of winter weight tights, right up until I noticed they were $39.95 a pair, Whatever happened to Yankee frugality? $39.95 for tights!?. I plowed on. They can't show adult people in PJs but they can show photos of real ladies modeling bras and panties?! And OH DEAR GAWD Men in Y-Fronts!

I got winded and had to move on to Collections to cool off - where I found they are selling an alarm clock called the Pole Dancer Alarm Clock, right next to the "Farting Santa on his porcelain sleigh"

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Joy

I went a head and made the bacon cookies. I wasn't going to, I had a lot of time to get them done but in the end I wanted them done now. I also wanted to see what happens to bacon bits when you put them in a blender - They turn into wispy, bacony feathers. Odd.

I was hopeing that blenderized bacon could mix in with the flour more thoroughly and that it would make for a creamier , stronger dough - But it didn't, I was disappointed. The bacon feathers were a little more integrated into the dough but not like the cheese or the peanut butter. I also had hoped the dough would be in better shape, but it stilled lacked the elasticity of the other varieties. I got very spoiled with the other additives. Who would have thought that sticky, wet peanut butter would end up being my friend? The bacon isn't really hard to deal with and Dogs love the bacon cookies so they aren't not leaving the menu anytime soon but I wish bacon was more tidy and made a better dough, like the cheese.

Its Santa's freezer. I was trying to think up another flavor but I decided that those were enough and I couldn't think of any other flavors that were easily accessible. I could go to the dog bakery downtown to do a little flavor espionage, but I'm not sure how much business they get and I don't want to get their hopes up by being in their store and looking like a customer and then feeling obligated to buy dog treats when I have several houndred in my freezer. I did decide I would make Dogger some Turkey shaped, turkey gravy flavored cookies for Thanksgiving and I think that will take care of my desire to spend more time baking for dogs. I'm hopeing that with the holidays coming that I'll get a chance to bake or at least cook for humans for a change.

Speaking of cooking for human beings. Between my weekend marathon treat baking and wasp killing, I went shopping. Bake for hours and snuff dozens of lives - You want to go shopping, its the circle of life. Really, go and check. I'll wait.

Waiting.

Have you found it? Try Wikipedia.

I am proved right? I thought so.

I bought the worlds smallest electric frying pan! It's teeny! It's like a baby electric frying pan and its the cutest thing in the entire world! I got it Saturday, but I didn't have any pancake fixings and that made me sad. But tonight, I looked at the clock and realized that it was 5:45 and the dog had been walked and fed, I had been walked and fed, the cats box was clean and the only thing on my docket was watching HGTV until I passed out.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Sucks being me

In between bouts of cookie making I sat in my chilly living room and killed wasps. Wasps who are now wearing tiny little parkas! You should see them, the malevolent beasties, in their parkas they look like demonic humming birds. Disney gone wrong.

Snow White would hate them. She would use a dwarf to squish them.

I hate them. I spent countless hours sitting on my chair waiting, listening for the crinkling of their wings against their hoods of their parkas and then hunting the beasts down one by one with my now boon campaign, my vacuum tube. They are getting smarter though, I had to change where I was keeping the vacuum stationed and take it on maneuvers to the dining room and the kitchen. Here I was the best armed military at my address and I was having to run defence. I have a weapon of mass destruction and I was being smoked. Have you ever tried to run around your house with your vacuum? Do you know how many times I tripped over the cord or the tube while I was doing this? I am Shrub! Misson Not Accomplished.

I did take cookie making breaks and I kept myself alert with Halloween candy and now have only one more variety to make before the cookies will be out of my freezer and into their new homes across the country. I'm really early this year, last year I'm pretty sure I was much more down to the wire with the cookie production and distribution. I love my Kitchen Aid, ya'll have no idea.

I still have bacon cookies to make, but there really isn't a rush. A new twist in these batches, I took the cheese for the cheese cookies and ran it through my blender and really pulverized it. It makes it much easier to get a nice, even mixture in the dough and now I'm interested to see how the bacon bits will do when blenderized. I've never been happy with the bacon cookie texture and I'm hopeing that this will smooth the cookies out a little and make them more uniform and smooth . There is also the issue that rolling out the bacon cookie dough is not fun because it has a lumpy texture and leans toward the delicate and its hard to get a nice even distribution of bits. Distribution is key.

The dogs have never complained but I have issues with the over all appearance of the cookies and all the other varieties are smooth and pretty from the start and have well behaved, studly, non-lumpy doughs. Aunt Cookie likes a strong, pretty, cookie.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Monday

Its November, are ya'll ready? Its time to go! Have you started Christmas Shopping yet? How many gifts have you gotten so far? Hasn't it been Halloween since July? I am so over Halloween and the color orange in general. I went into Target this afternoon and I want all of you to know, it is officially Christmas now. Plan accordingly.

I have four gifts so far. Don't hate me because I plan ahead.

My doorbell rang twice Saturday night. The first at 8:06 the second time at 10:30. I only handed out candy the one time, the second time I told them we were closed for the night, but I should have punished them by forcing them to take the rest of the candy - You were late. For your punishment you get all the candy I did not eat over the week. I hope you like blue flavored tootsie pops and green tootsie rolls! Next time you'll go out earlier!

Do you know how much candy I have left? I had gone out and bought a secondary bag to make up for all the snacking I did during the week! I now have all the candy in the world. If any one wants any tootsie roll branded candy, I am there for you. Totally. Ask away.

I have too much to take it all in to work with me! Hi! Here is fourteen pounds of discount candy. Have at. I don't know whats sadder, that I have all this candy or that I'm so unpopular that kids didn't come to my door to take the candy. Maybe next year I'll give in a buy real chocolate. Could the cold shoulder I got be my punishment for handing out pretzels last year? Am I on Halloween probation?

Isn't there a certain amount of bragging rights that come with your house being popular with the trick or treaters? My door bell rang for hours! We ran out of candy! We had a bus load! We had to turn our light off at 8:45! Everyone likes us!. Nobody likes me. The only kids who came to my door were the children across the street and they didn't even wear costumes. Thank Gawd it was too warm for me to go Full Red Riding Hood. Then I could have been pathetic and dressed like a fairytale character. By myself. With a bowl of unwanted candy.

It Could Happen Here

Twitter Updates

Twitter Updates

Obama '12

"We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War of Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over... September 11, 2001, already a day of immeasurable tragedy, cannot be the day liberty perished in this country."